What's the Dell 'Adamo?' Inadvertent catalog entries give clues

Gee, what do you suppose Dell's super-secret new Adamo brand, due to premiere at the next CES, could be? We could ask a slew of analysts for their best advance speculation...Or we could just Google it.

About one hundred percent of the media speculation today over the identity of a curious new Dell brand device called Adamo centered around the possibility that it is an ultralight computer, probably an offshoot of its existing XPS series, designed to compete with Apple's super-thin MacBook Air.

That speculation appears fairly safe this afternoon, as earlier today, Google apparently cached the appearance of a complete slate of Adamo accessories that appeared on, then disappeared from, Dell's online catalog. Among those items were 250 GB and 500 GB external 5400 RPM SATA hard drives -- the clearest indication yet that the Adamo is an ultralight device, probably with its own internal solid-state drive.

An inadvertent listing for an accessory product that the Adamo 13, whatever that is, appears to need, taken from a Google cache of Dell's accessories catalog on Friday.

Accessory devices which regularly appear in Dell's catalog for a variety of existing notebooks computers, also evidently appeared briefly as being available for a model "Adamo Thirteen," though that listing later disappeared from their online entries. Such accessories included HDMI and DVI-I DisplayPort video dongles, suggesting high-quality video delivery capability, and maybe even a built-in player capable of high definition output. At last check, only Blu-ray drives regularly played 1080p movies.

Also listed were 45W power adaptors, replacement Blu-ray and DVD/CD-RW combo drives, USB memory keys, and automotive/airplane power adaptors.

It wouldn't be the first time that a mission numbered 13 had a problem.

A group of independent filmmakers already speculated about Dell's possible response to Apple's MacBook Air.